Orthodox Reflections

OR Staff Note:

The medical establishment within the U.S. is in crisis.

Expensive

The U.S. “healthcare” system is grotesquely expensive. In 2021, global health spending was about $9.8 trillion, while U.S. healthcare spending was close to half of the entire total at $4.1 trillion. In 2021, U.S. spending was about 17.8% of GDP, while the average for high-income countries was 9.6%. 2024 estimated per person expenditure on “healthcare” was approximately $13,432, double the average in other wealthy countries. Medical debt is a top factor in personal bankruptcies. Even “religiously-based, non-profit” hospitals routinely drive patients (victims) into bankruptcy trying to collect exorbitant fees. In the name of Christ, of course.

For all that money, the U.S. ranks dead last in health among wealthy nations. We pay more to get less.

Destructive

Approximately 6 in 10 U.S. adults (about 60%) have at least one chronic illness, and over 27% have two or more. This averages to about 1.5 chronic illnesses per adult, even among Young Adults (18-34) approximately 59.5% have at least one chronic condition. Many of these conditions are caused by treatments (such as vaccines) they have received. In other words, the “healthcare” system creates its own customer base. The medical term for this is iatrogenic: an illness, condition, or injury that is caused by a medical examination, medical treatment, or the actions of a health care provider. Real numbers are difficult to pin down, but the estimate is that over 1.3 million Americans are injured annually from iatrogenic causes such as medication side effects, dosing errors, allergic reactions, surgical errors, and other “mistakes.” You go in for treatment, and come out worse than before with chronic conditions requiring more and more “healthcare.” Assuming you survive at all. Preventable medical errors are the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S. We are going broke paying for a system that treats us as disposable cattle to be slaughtered on the altar of corporate greed.

Demonic

God created animals and gave them to our care. As part of animal drug trials, “researchers” torture them in ways we can scarcely describe. All in pursuit of the next big money making drug, most of whom will completely fail to provide any benefit. But what we do to animals pales in comparison to what we do to babies. The term “fetal cell lines”, a staple of modern drug development, hides a demonic reality. Those lines originate from babies born alive, then dismembered to harvest the needed cells and organs.

This is the stuff of horror movies. It is straight out of Hell. The research establishment has tried to obfuscate this truth from time to time, but it is easy to find out the true facts if you do even a modicum of research. The entire modern system is based on demonic principles that Christians should devoutly reject.

But we don’t reject it. We embrace it in our quest to avoid death. Christians are more afraid of dying, than they are of standing before Christ having partaken in this demonic system.

The Article Below in Context

A major takeaway from what Augustine has to say below is this: the people making trillions of dollars are not going to “reform” the medical system. The only thing in your power is to decide to what extent you will be personally corrupted by it. You can control you. Nothing else. Pray for repentance strongly enough to be prepared to face death, rather than let the fear of death drive you into darkness. For those struggling with the fear of death, we recommend praying the Akathist to God the Father for the Reposed Souls and related prayers, and Akathist to Saint Dismas the Good Thief on the Cross

You will never cheat death, no matter what the medical system promises, but you can surely be cheated out of your salvation.

Is a godly healthcare system possible? As noted below by Augustine, hospitals originated from the Church. We celebrate unmercenary healer saints in the Church who were physicians, though they treated patients out of mercy and not profit. So there is much, much more to be said on this topic, but St John Chrysostom is certainly an excellent place to start.

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By Austin Martin

During the COVID hoax, there was a lot of talk about the ethics of taking the Jewish Vaccine. Many of us pointed to a wide range of ethical problems with it, particularly that its manufacturing is at least distantly derived from abortion. We also learned that almost all modern medicine comes from abortion. There were also concerns about the health risks of the Jewish Vaccine and the ethics of taking a drug under various levels of coercion. But other people who acknowledged these issues said that the good outweighs the bad and we should just roll the dice for the greater good of society. Then there were other people who believed that COVID was real and the Jewish Vaccine protects you, so those of us who refused to take it were going to kill everyone like plague rats.

These debates raged in the Orthodox Church. Can you take a morally questionable medicine for the greater good? Bishops and seminary professors said yes. Others of us said no. But there is one central text of the Church tradition that no one looked at, not even here on Orthodox Reflections. If any text should inform us about the ethics of medicine, even if you disagree over the text’s application, that would be the eighth sermon Against the Jews, really, better titled, Against the Synagogues, by St John Chrysostom.

Yes, the infamous eight-sermon series that we all are vaguely aware exists but are afraid to read or quote – we’re going to look at it today. Way at the end, in the second half of the final sermon, Chrysostom talks about Jewish medicine as sorcery. We’re going to work through it slowly because it’s so important of a text, and no one else is looking at it. So this article is going to be much longer than the target ten-minute length.

Of course all modern, mainstream medicine is Jewish medicine, and all Jewish medicine is Jewish sorcery. And so all modern, mainstream medicine is Jewish sorcery. I don’t think I need to explain to you how immersed in the drug trade the Jews are. Yes, not all doctors are Jewish, and not all drugs are synthesized by Jews, and not all insurance companies are Jewish, but the modern hospital system is as Jewish any other institution or industry that dominates our society. Without the Jewish money and influence, the medical industry would be entirely different.

On 27 June 2022 Chairman and CEO of Pfizer Dr. Albert Bourla visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, dedicated to preserving the memory of the “Shoah” for generations to come. He was in Israel to receive the Genesis Prize – awarded to those who show a commitment to Jewish values and support for Israel. His company’s mRNA vaccine, highly praised by President Trump, has killed in excess of 470,000 Americans, and caused an untold number of severe injuries.

And even if the medical industry is not foundationally Jewish, it’s secular and anti-God enough that everything I say applies regardless of ethnicity. These are the people giving children cross-sex hormones, “curing” cancer through poison, and selling abortion vaccines. They see the body as another machine to be repaired like a car, and they have no concept of the soul. The medical industry is, at the very best, a mixed blessing you have to deal with because there’s no other option.

Let us remember that originally hospitals came from the Church. They treated people for free. But now with the secularizing of medicine, not only do you only get endlessly sicker, but you also get endlessly deeper in debt, even if you have insurance. I’m told that even with insurance it costs over ten grand to have a baby, something we have been doing since literally always.

On some level, all modern science is mad science. If you view modern medicine as a form of potion-making, a lot of things make sense. Psychiatric drugs especially open you up to demons, which is why they have such a high suicide rate.

Modern medicine, in my opinion, is the sorcery in Revelation. The word in Revelation and Galatians for sorcery is φαρμακεία, “pharmakeia” in English letters, which would be Anglicized to “pharmacy” by the normal way Greek words come into English. I think that this refers to both the modern medical industry and recreational drug use, neither of which the Fathers could imagine. The merchant city of Babylon, that both enslaves the world and is hated by the world in Revelation 17-18 and Jeremiah 50-51, is America, if not ultimately then at least typologically. Who can resist the Beast? We control the world through finance and war. Babylon deceives the nations with its pharmakeia (Rev 18:23), and the people refuse to repent of their pharmaka (drugs) even after all their torment (9:21). The pharmakoi (practitioners or sellers of drugs) burn in the lake of fire (21:8) and are outside the heavenly Jerusalem (22:15). Pharmakeia is also one of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-20. The word and its variants occur dozens of times in the Septuagint, always in a negative connotation except for in Tobit and Sirach.

But even natural medicine is suspicious. Every drug is derived from something in nature. The Book of Enoch is not part of the Bible, and the Church forgot it for a reason, but it’s worth noting that it teaches that demons taught us the use of herbal remedies, along with cosmetics, astrology, weapons of war, and various forms of craftsmanship. Make of it what you will.

7 Then they took for themselves women, each of them choosing a woman for themselves. They began to go to them and defile them. And they taught them sorcery and enchantments and cutting of roots and explained herbs to them. 2 But those who ⌊became pregnant⌋ brought forth great giants from three thousand cubits. 3 These giants ate up the produce of the men. When the men were not able to provide for them, 4 the giants had courage against them and ate up the men. 5 And they began to sin against birds and wild animals and reptiles and fish, and each one of them ate up the flesh and drank the blood. 6 Then the earth brought up charges against the lawless ones.

8 Azael taught the humans to make swords and weapons, shields and breastplates—the lessons of the angels; and they showed to them their mining and craftsmanship, anklets and adornment, powders and painted eyes, and all kinds of chosen stones and dying. 2 Much ungodliness and prostitution happened and they were led astray and ruined in all their ways. 3 Semiaza taught enchantments and cutting of roots; Armaros, spells of healing; Rhakiel, astrology; Chochiel, the science of symptoms; Sathiel, watching the stars; Seriel, the course of the moon. 4 Therefore the cry of the utterly destroyed people went up unto heaven. [LES]

Jewish medicine is forbidden by the Council in Trullo (Quini-Sext) in its eleventh canon:

LET no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman let him be cut off. [NPNF 2.14]

That’s from an ecumenical council. You can’t tell me that it’s completely irrelevant because back then people didn’t understand how friendly the Jews are. Note that there is no qualification about sorcery. If someone is a Jew, then you’re not allowed to go to them for medicine.

The final source I want to share before we get to Chrysostom’s sermon is this article from Fr Alexey/Ambrose Young. He details nine modern saints who rejected medicine as they were dying so that they could feel the fullness of death. This article made a great impact on me as a new convert.

I generally don’t talk about myself on the internet because I want to focus on ideas and literature. I have had about a dozen chronic major health problems that I refuse to even get diagnosed. It was probably six years ago that I first became conscious that I did not at all have the health someone my age should have, because I remember a specific conversation about it. I don’t know how I’m still alive through any naturalistic explanation. “Dying, behold, we live.” And as the Albanians say, “There is no death. There is only suffering.”

Then the good church people tell me, “Why don’t you go see a doctor?” Why don’t I just take the Mark of the Beast and worship the Antichrist? Same difference. I tell them that doctors are nothing but butchers and drug-dealers.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take your insulin. I realize that some people are dependent on the medical industry. People have different considerations they have to weigh. But for me personally, it would be a betrayal of my faith if I made a deal with Dr. Goldstein. I would never live down the guilt, knowing that I had abandoned the mysterious ways of Christ for the certainty that the atheistic big-S Science industry provides. Diagnostic medicine is a form of fortune-telling or soothsaying. It’s looking into the things that God has hidden from us.

Granted, I sometimes take over-the-counter medicine. But even then I feel guilty. And of course if I injured myself, I would go to the hospital. So I’m not saying that this is an absolute rule for all times and all people.

So let’s look at Chrysostom’s sermon. This, yes, is the actual tradition of the Church, not what the approved Orthodox gatekeepers with their foundation money told you. I’m going to quote the entire relevant second half unabridged because I believe in being open and honest with information, unlike the spiritually compromised who teach Orthodox seminary. This is from the CUA Press translation, which seems to be identical to this supposedly public domain translation you can read here.

The context is that some Christians observed a fasting season with the Jews. At first Chrysostom goes to great length to explain the importance of restoring someone after he had already sinned. Then he tells people how to go to such a person and convince him to repent.

V. (6) Suppose he uses the cures which the Jews effect as his excuse; suppose he says: “They promise to make me well, and so I go to them.” Then you must reveal the tricks they use, their incantations, their amulets, their charms and spells. This is the only way in which they have a reputation for healing; they do not effect genuine cures. Heaven forbid they should! Let me go so far as to say that even if they really do cure you, it is better to die than to run to God’s enemies and be cured that way. What use is it to have your body cured if you lose your soul? What profit is there that you find some relief from your pain in this world if you are going to be consigned to eternal fire?

Now obviously you’re going to tell me that modern medicine isn’t sorcery, and Chrysostom is talking about using witchcraft to restore physical health. But is it really? More and more we’re learning how morally compromising modern medicine is.

When the Vaccine came out, some people pointed out that it was tested on fetal cell lines. I don’t know what that means, but at the least it means that the Jewish Vaccine couldn’t exist without abortion. And then other people said that all medicine is tested on fetal cell lines, and so you would have to reject any kind of medicine if you’re going to be consistent. And we all said, Wait, what?

The development of many (perhaps even most) modern medicines requires the harvesting of cells from living babies with no anesthetic. If this is not demonic, then that term has absolutely no meaning. How much do you fear death, Christians, that you will accept this? Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

So that alone is enough reason to reject all modern medicine. If you have to kill a child to live prosperously, that’s not medicine – it’s a Phoenician death cult. And if we in the Orthodox Church believe that all medicine works with God’s help, then how would God cooperate with abortion medicine? Does God have his blessing on something that comes from evil?

We’re finding out more and more the kind of malicious junk put into ALL vaccines. Supposedly the Trump administration is about to admit that it makes kids autistic after all. And yet people will still defend the inherent good of vaccines to the death.

Notice the line about how Jewish medicine does not actually cure you. We don’t have a healthcare industry — we have a sickcare industry. Mainstream medicine is about making reliable, long-term clients. Half the reason I don’t go to doctors because I think they’re too stupid and incompetent to know what’s wrong with me.

Look at chemotherapy. Does that count as medicine? It’s just poisoning the body to the point where you might outlive the cancer. And this is just standard, accepted healthcare for decades. You don’t have to check Wikipedia to guess the inventor’s ethnicity.

What about the opioid crisis? It was proven in court that the Jewish Sackler family outright lied about that.

Look at psychiatric drugs. How many lives have been ruined because people just did what the medical experts told them? Psychiatry, as we know, is as Jewish as Sigmund Freud’s neuroses.

And now we have the transgender treatments, which is so manifestly destructive that I don’t need to write anything further. The famous picture of Hitler burning books was from the sexual institute in Berlin that promoted these same perversions. Sometimes the Nazis were right.

This is your hospital for you. What is the good they actually do? At best, they might cure you faster than they kill you. And they have such a monopoly that alternative medicine is almost illegal.

Chrysostom says that if you take an evil medicine, you will go to hell. Why bother being cured if you destroy your soul? What’s it all for? Particularly he says that you go to hell for “running to God’s enemies”. Jewish medicine will send you to hell just for the sake of being Jewish.

(7) So that no Jew may say he will cure you, listen to what God said: “If there arise among you a prophet or dreamer of dreams who gives you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he spoke comes to pass, and if he says: ‘Let us go and worship other gods,’ do not listen to that prophet; for the Lord, your God, is testing you to see if you love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.”

(8) What God means is this. Suppose some prophet says to you: “I can raise a dead man to life or cure a blind man. But you must obey me when I say: ‘Let us worship demons, or let us offer sacrifice to idols.’ ” Then, suppose the man who said this can cure a blind man or can raise a dead man to life. God said that you must not heed him because of these signs and wonders which he works. Why? Because God is testing you, he permitted that man to have this power. It is not that God does not know your thoughts but that he is giving you a chance to prove if you really love him. And there are men who are eager to drag us away from our Beloved. Even if they show dead men brought back to life, the man who truly loves God will not stand apart from God because he has seen such signs and wonders.

(9) If God said this to the Jews, he says it all the more to us. We are the ones he led to a greater life of virtue. He opened the door for us to rise again. He gave the command to us not to love our dwelling here on earth but to keep all our hopes aimed at the life to come.

Chrysostom rejects the possibility that a Jew may cure you. He doesn’t say that a Jew may cure you with roots and herbs. He says that there is no way in which a Jew can cure you. It’s categorically impossible that someone living in rebellion against God and all humanity will cure you.

Notice the last sentence. Boomers spend their lives trying to live longer. Their conversations are all about their health problems. Their schedules revolve around doctor visits. But we aren’t supposed to focus on living on this earth. We are just passing through, like staying in an inn for the night. We’re here and gone. What does it matter if you die from a curable disease? That just means you check out of the hotel earlier. And lately, you know, this hotel is getting filled with roaches and snakes.

VI. But what are you saying? Is it that a bodily ailment is afflicting you and crushing you? You have not suffered as many ills as did blessed Job. You have not endured even the slightest part of his pain. First, he lost the whole throng of his flocks, his herds, and every other possession. Then the whole chorus of his children was snatched off. And all this happened on a single day, so that not only the nature of his calamities but also the unbroken succession of his losses might crush this athlete down to earth.

(2) After all that, he received a lethal blow on his body, he saw worms swarming forth from his flesh, he sat naked on a dung hill, a public spectacle of disaster for all men there to see, Job the just, truthful, God-fearing man who kept himself aloof from every evil deed. And his troubles did not stop there. All day, all night, he suffered distress, and a strange and unusual hunger assailed him. He said: “I see my food is a stench.” Each day he was reproached, scoffed at, mocked, and ridiculed. He said: “My servants and the children of my concubines have risen up against me, my dreams are filled with terror, my thoughts are tossed with constant storms.”

(3) But his wife promised him freedom from all these things when she said: “Speak some word against the Lord and die.” What she meant was: “Curse God and you will be freed from the troubles which oppress you.” Did her advice change the mind of that holy man? It did just the opposite; it gave him great strength so that he even reproached his wife. He chose to feel pain, to endure hardship, and to suffer ten thousand terrible things rather than curse God and so find release from his terrible troubles.

(4) The man who had been thirty-eight years in the grip of his infirmity used to rush each year to the pool and each year he was driven back and found no cure. Each year he would see others cured because they had many to take care of them. But he had no one to put him in the water ahead of the others and so remained in the constant grip of his paralysis. Even so, he did not run to the soothsayers, he did not go to the charm-users, he did not tie an amulet around his neck, but he waited for God to help him. That is why he finally found a wonderful and unexpected cure.

(5) Lazarus wrestled all his days with hunger, disease, and poverty, not only for thirty-eight years but for his whole life. At any rate, he died while he was lying at the gateway of the rich man, scorned, scoffed at, famished, laid out before the dogs for food. For his body had grown too weak to scare away the dogs who came and licked his wounds. Yet he did not search for a soothsayer, he did not tie tokens around his neck, and he did not resort to the charm-users, he did not call in those skilled in witchcraft, nor did he do anything he was forbidden to do. He chose to die from these troubles of his rather than betray in any small way his life of godliness.

That’s a lot. Chrysostom gives three biblical examples of people who suffered with sickness instead of going to witchcraft for a cure.

(6) Look at the torments and sufferings those men endured! What excuse will we have if for our fevers and hurts we run to the synagogues, if we summon into our own house these sorcerers, these dealers in witchcraft? Hear what the Scripture says: “My son, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for trial, put straight your heart, and be steadfast. Be obedient to him in sickness and in poverty. As gold is tested in the fire, so the chosen man is tested in the furnace of humiliation.”

(7) Suppose you flog your servant. Suppose, that, after you have dealt him thirty or fifty lashes, he then loudly demands his freedom, or that he flees from your control to take refuge with men who hate you. Suppose that he then incites them against you. Tell me this. Can he get you to forgive him? Can anyone offer a defense in his behalf? Of course not.

(8) But why? Because it is a master’s duty to punish his servant. And this is not the only reason. If the slave had to run away, he should not have gone to enemies who hated his master; he should have gone to his master’s true friends. You must do the same. When you see that God is punishing you, do not flee to his enemies, the Jews, so that you may not rouse his anger against you still further. Run instead to the martyrs, to the saints, to those in whom he is well pleased and who can speak to him with great confidence and freedom.

The medical industry exists in defiance of God. It sets itself up as God. How then can you expect God to heal you if you go to his enemies?

Sickness comes from God for our own salvation. Chrysostom says that you are supposed to just endure it and wait for God and the saints to cure you. That’s literally what he says. It’s right there.

Note the rare early attestation to direct appeal to the saints for help. It’s not something that was commonly articulated until the iconoclasm controversy in the 700s.

(9) But why talk about slaves and masters? If a father flogs his son, the son cannot do what the slave did, nor can he deny his relationship to his father. Suppose the father flogs his son, suppose he keeps him from his table, suppose he drives him from his house, and punishes him every way he can. Both the laws of nature and those established by man command the son to be brave and endure all this. No one ever excuses the son if he refuses to obey his father and put up with the punishment. Even if the boy who was flogged lifts his voice in ten thousand bitter laments, everybody tells him that it was his father who flogged him, that his father is his master and has the power to do whatever he wants, that the son must meekly endure it all.

Chrysostom justifies domestic violence. I don’t know what to do with that, but it wasn’t a radical idea until the 20th century.

Likewise, our modern concept of sexual consent is very … modern. I’m not saying that we should replace it with something else. Just that this isn’t an ethic the Fathers articulated.

(10) So, then, slaves put up with their masters and sons put up with their fathers even though the punishments they get often do not fit the fault. Will you refuse to put up with God when He corrects you? Is he not more your master than your master is? Does he not love you more than any father? When he interferes and does something, it is not done from anger. He does everything for your own good. If you get some slight illness, will you reject him as your master and rush off to the demons and desert over to the synagogues? What pardon will you find after that? How can you call on Him for help again? Who else will be able to plead your cause even if he could speak with the freedom and confidence of a Moses? There is no one.

There again, very explicitly, you are supposed to endure sickness instead of trying to find a cure, especially from those who hate God and rebel against him.

An industry built on abortion that promotes transsexuality is an industry in rebellion against God. How can you go to the hospital and expect not to go to hell? Chrysostom lays it all out for us if we would only read it.

Sickness is a form of fasting. God gives you sickness to teach you to not be carnal-minded. The things of the flesh lose their importance when it’s withering away. You set your mind on eternal things when the earthly seems to be ending. As St Paul said:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. [2 Corinthians 4:16-5:8, NKJV]

Continuing on with the sermon:

(11) Do you not hear what God said to Jeremiah about the Jews? “Do not intercede for this people because even if Moses and Samuel shall stand (before my face), I will not listen to them.” That is how far some sins go beyond forgiveness and how incapable of defense they are. Therefore, let us not draw down such anger on ourselves. Even if the Jews seem to relieve your fever with their incantations, they are not relieving it. They are bringing down on your conscience another more dangerous fever. Every day you will feel the sting of remorse; every day your conscience will flog you. And what will your conscience say? “You sinned against God, you transgressed his Law, you violated your covenant with Christ. For an insignificant ailment you betrayed your faith. You are not the only one who has suffered this ailment, are you? Have not others been much more seriously ill than you? Still no one of them dared commit such a sin. But you were so soft and weak that you sacrificed your soul. What defense will you make to Christ? How will you ask for his help in your prayers? With what conscience will you set foot in the church? With what eyes will you look at the priest? With what hands will you touch the sacred banquet? With what ears will you listen to the reading of the scriptures there?”

You took the abortion medicine. You were terrified of dying, so you went to the godless and put into your body whatever they told you. And now you’re their pill slave. Your prescription is actually a subscription. You are dependent on this evil industry in order to keep living, and you did it because you haven’t confronted your own mortality yet.

VII. Every day your reason will sting you and your conscience will flog you with these words. What kind of health is this when we have such thoughts in our minds to accuse us? But if you put up with your fever for a little while, if you scorn those who want to chant over you an incantation or tie an amulet to your body, if you insult them roundly and drive them from your house, your conscience will immediately bring you relief like a drink of water. Even if the fever recurs time and time again, even if it is burning up your body, your soul brings you a solace that is better and more profitable than any relief from water or perspiration.

Scream at the doctor who tries to sell you drugs.

(2) Even if you recover your health after the incantation, the thought of the sin you committed leaves you worse off than those who are tossed with fever. And if you are the one who has the fever now, if you are the one who suffers ten thousand torments, you will be better off than any healthy man, because you have gotten rid of those foul sorcerers. Your reason will exult, your soul will rejoice and be glad, your conscience will praise you and voice its approval.

(3) And what will your conscience say? “Well done, well done, good man. You are the servant of Christ, you are the man of faith, the athlete of the godly life. You chose to die in torment rather than betray the life of godliness entrusted to your care. You will stand with the martyrs on that day. The martyrs chose to be flogged and torn on the rack that God might hold them in honor. So you chose this day to be flogged and racked with fever and wounds rather than submit to profane incantations and amulets. Because you nurture yourself with these hopes, you will not feel the torments which assail you.”

If you die from a disease that could be cured by an immoral medicine, then that counts as martyrdom. Think about that. Even if the medicine works, it doesn’t matter.

That alone is reason enough to not take the COVID Vaccine. I truly believed at the time that if you took the Vaccine, you would purge the Holy Spirit out of you and go to hell with no hope whatsoever. I was an evangelist against the Jewish Vaccine. I told all my coworkers that it would turn them gay.

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If I were to go to the hospital, even if I found out what was wrong, whether it was curable or not, I would never live with myself. It would feel like I had cheated. I had peaked behind the curtain and found something that I wasn’t supposed to. I didn’t just wait on God to do what he wanted. I took matters into my own hands and made a deal with evil people because I was afraid of suffering. Whatever externally ascetic accomplishment I made after that was only possible because of my lack of faith. It would ruin any Christian discipline for the rest of my life.

(4) If this fever does not carry you off, another one surely will; if we do not die now, we are sure to die later. It is our lot to have a body doomed to die. But we do not have this body so that we may heed its passions and take to ourselves a life of godlessness, but that we may use its passions for the godly life. If we live the sober life, this corruption, this same mortal body will become the basis for our honor and will give us great confidence not only on that day but also in the present life.

(5) So, go ahead and insult those sorcerers roundly and drive them from your house. Everybody who hears of it will praise you and marvel at you. People will say one to the other: “So and so was sick and in pain. Time and time again people came to him and urged him, exhorted him, and advised him to subject himself to magic incantations. He did not give in but said: ‘It is better to die the way I am than to betray my faith and the godly life.’ ” Those who hear these words will applaud him long and loud; they will be astounded and give glory to God.

Scream at the Jews trying to sell you drugs. What priest has ever said that to you? Call the Jew a filthy Jew and tell him to get out of your house in the name of Jesus Christ.

Imagine if every time a doctor tried to sell psychiatric medicine to children, their parents screamed at them instead of complying? How different would our society be? But instead most people just went along with it, and now we have countless millions of broken people whose brain chemistry was wrecked by these FDA-approved potions. And yet you tell me that this isn’t sorcery.

(6) Do you not think this will be more rich in honor than many statues, more brilliant in its magnificence than many portraits, more remarkable in its distinction than many dignities? Everyone will praise you, everyone will count you happy, everyone will crown you with the victor’s wreath. And they will be better themselves, they will experience a return to zeal, they will imitate your courage. If somebody else does what you did, you will carry off the reward because it was you who gave him his start, it is you whom he emulates.

I don’t merely avoid doctors because I don’t want to waste time and money. I do it for others’ salvation. I want to show people that you can live above the premises of the world.

(7) Your good deeds will not only bring praise to you but also rapid release from your sickness. The nobility of your choice will win God to even greater good will; all the saints will rejoice at what you have done; they will pray for you from the bottom of their hearts.

Yeah, that didn’t happen for me. With every passing year I feel more like death.

If such courage brings these rewards in this life, consider what reward you will receive in heaven. In the presence of all the angels and archangels, Christ will come forward, take you by the hand, and lead you to the middle of that stage. Everyone will listen when he says:

(8) “This man was once gripped by fever. Many people urged him to be rid of his ailment, but, for my name’s sake and because he feared he might offend me in some way, he scorned these people and thrust aside those who were promising to cure him in that fashion. He chose to die of his illness rather than betray his love for me.”

(9) If Christ leads to the center of this stage those who gave him to drink, who clothed and fed him, he will do this all the more for those who endured fevers for his sake. Giving food and clothing is not the same thing as submitting to a long continuing disease. To submit to the disease is a much greater thing. And the greater the suffering, the more glorious will be the reward.

It’s notable that Chrysostom doesn’t entirely deny that Jewish magic can cure the disease. If anything, the effectiveness of the magic only makes the prohibition more relevant. Because medicine works, it should be avoided. Truly the wisdom of Christ is the foolishness of the world.

(10) In sickness and in health, let us rehearse for this day and talk about it one to the other. If we find ourselves in the grip of a fever we cannot endure, let us say to ourselves: “What about this? If someone brought a charge against me and I was dragged into court, if I were tied to the whipping post and my sides were torn with lashes, would I not have to put up with it at any rate, even though I would get no profit or reward?”

(11) Now let us ponder on this. Suppose there is set before you a reward for your patience and endurance; suppose the reward is large enough to encourage your fallen spirit. “But my fever is severe,” you say, “and hard to bear.” Then compare your fever to the fire of gehenna. You will surely escape that fire if you show great endurance in putting up with your fever.

Again, there is no suggestion that you go to legitimate medicine instead of illegitimate medicine. At no point in the sermon does Chrysostom distinguish between authentic medicine and sorcery. For him it’s all one and the same.

(12) Remember how many sufferings the apostles endured. Remember that the just were constantly afflicted. Remember that blessed Timothy had no rest from his illness, but lived with his disease from one end of his life to the other. Paul made this clear when he said: “Use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities.” That just and holy man took in hand the superintendence of the world, brought the dead back to life, drove out demons, and cured ten thousand ailments in others.54 If he experienced such terrible sufferings, what defense will you have for groaning and grieving over ailments which will last only for a time?

(13) Did you not listen to the Scripture? It says: “Whom the Lord loves he chastizes; and he scourges every son whom he receives.” How many times and how many men have yearned to receive the crown of martyrdom? In this you have a perfect martyr’s crown. A martyr is made not only when someone is ordered to offer sacrifice but chooses to die rather than offer the sacrifice. If a man shuns any practice, and to shun it can only bring on death, he is certainly a martyr.

VIII. So that you may know that this is true, remember how John [the Baptist] died, from what motive, and why. Remember, too, how Abel died. Neither John nor Abel saw an altar with its fire, nor a statue standing before them. They heard no voice commanding them to offer sacrifice. John only reproached Herod and had his head cut off; Abel merely honored God with a more excellent sacrifice than his brother did, and Cain slew him.58 They were not deprived of martyr’s crowns, were they? Who would dare to say that? The very way they died is enough to make everyone agree that they belong in the front ranks of the martyrs.

(2) If you are looking for some divine proclamation about these two men, listen to what Paul said. He made it clear that his words are the words of the Holy Spirit when he said: “I think that I also have the Spirit of God.” What then, did Paul say? He began with Abel and told how Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith, though he is dead, he yet speaks.

(3) Then Paul continued his account down through the prophets and came to John. After he said: “They were put to death by the sword, and others were tortured,” after he recounted many and different modes of martyrdom, he went on to say: “Therefore, let us also, having such a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, put away every encumbrance and run with patience.”62 Do you see that he also called Abel a martyr, along with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? For some of these died for God’s sake in the same way that Paul spoke of when he said: “I die daily”; they died not by dying but only by their willingness to endure death.

(4) If you do this, if you reject the incantations, the spells, and the charms, and if you then die of your disease, you will be a perfect martyr. Even though others promised you relief along with an ungodly life, you chose death with godliness.

So more of the same. But then he talks about how actually the hospital will not save you at all.

And I have spoken these words to those boastful talkers who say that the demons do effect cures. To learn how false this is, listen to what Christ said about the devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning.” God says he is a murderer; do you rush to him as you would to a physician?

Once again, basically all medicine is tested on aborted fetal cell lines. I assume that there are almost no pro-choice people reading this blog regularly. We all agree that modern pharmacology was enabled by murdering the most defenseless.

(5) Tell me this. When you stand indicted before God’s tribunal, what reason will you be able to give for considering the Jews’ witchcraft more worthy of your belief than what Christ has said? God said that the devil is a murderer; they say that he can cure diseases, in contradiction to God’s word. When you accept their charms and incantations, your actions show that you consider the Jews more worthy of your belief than God, even if you do not say it in so many words.

That’s a point. If the Jews are the children of Satan, and if all modern medicine is Jewish sorcery, then why do you disbelieve God when he said that they come only to kill, steal and destroy?

(6) If the devil is a murderer, it is clear that the demons who serve him are murderers, too. What Christ did has taught you this lesson. At any rate, he gave the demons leave to enter into the herd of swine and the demons drove the whole herd down the cliff and drowned them. He did this so that you might know that the demons would have done the same thing to human beings and would have drowned them if God had allowed them to do so. But he restrained the demons, stopped them, and permitted them to do no such thing. Once they had gotten power over the swine, the demons made quite clear what they would have done to us. If they did not spare the swine, it is all the more sure they would not have kept their hands off us. Therefore, beloved, do not be swept off by the deceits of the demons but stand firm in your fear of God.

(7) But how will you go into the synagogue? If you make the sign of the cross on your forehead, the evil power that dwells in the synagogue immediately takes to flight. If you fail to sign your forehead, you have immediately thrown away your weapon at the doors. Then the devil will lay hold of you, naked and unarmed as you are, and he will overwhelm you with ten thousand terrible wounds.

(8) What need is there for me to say this? The way you act when you get to the synagogue makes it clear that you consider it a very serious sin to go to that wicked place. You are anxious that no one notice your arrival there; you urge your household, friends, and neighbors not to report you to the priests. If someone does report you, you fly into a rage. Would it not be the height of folly to try to hide from men your bold and shameless sin when God, who is present everywhere, sees it?

(9) Are you not afraid of God? Then, at least, stand in some awe and fear of the Jews. How will you look them in the eye? How will you speak to them? You profess you are a Christian, but you rush off to their synagogues and beg them to help you. Do you not realize how they laugh at you, scoff at you, jeer at you, dishonor you, and reproach you? Even if they do not do it openly, do you not understand that they are doing this deep down in their hearts?

White people are unwilling to acknowledge how much the Jews hate them. We deserve our Mohammedans.

IX. Tell me, then. Will you put up with their jibes? Will you tolerate them? Suppose you had to suffer incurable ills; suppose you had to die ten thousand deaths. Would it not be much better to endure all that rather than have those abominable people laugh and scoff at you, rather than live with a bad conscience?

Most people’s answer is no. They will sell out their integrity for a chance at living for a few more months.

Now with “medicine”, you can get a pig valve for your heart. You would think that people would draw the line here. We don’t become human-animal hybrids. But fun fact: no. There is no line of mad science where people will refuse to be cured. They will do anything to live bodily, even if it means the death of their souls.

(2) My purpose in speaking is not to have you hear this for yourselves; I want you also to work to cure those who have this sickness. They are feeble in their faith, and for this I blame them. I also blame you for your unwillingness to set the sick ones straight. It is not in question that, when you come here to church, you listen to what is said, you leave yourself open to condemnation when you fail to follow through with action the words you hear.

Remember how we were told to never argue religion or proselytize? Well, Chrysostom doesn’t agree. He talks about this at greater length in the others sermons in this series.

(3) Why are you a Christian? Is it not that you may imitate Christ and obey his Laws? What did Christ do? He did not sit in Jerusalem and call the sick to come to him. He went around to cities and towns and cured sickness of both body and soul. He could have stayed sitting in the same place and still have drawn all men to himself. But he did not do this. Why? So that he might give us the example of going around in search of those who are perishing.

(4) He gave us another glimpse of this example in the parable of the shepherd. The shepherd did not sit down with the ninety-nine sheep and wait for the lost one to come to him. He went out himself and found it. And after he found the lost sheep, he lifted it to his shoulders and brought it back. Do you not see that a physician does this same thing? He does not force patients who are confined to bed to be brought to his home. The physician himself hurries to the homes of the sick.

Here he finally mentions a legitimate physician. But physicians back then actually dealt with their patients. Today you spend three hours at the hospital with a team of medical professionals, and you only see the doctor for five minutes, during which he gives you a diagnosis and writes you a prescription. And of course ancient physicians did not have the web of mad science poison we have today.

(5) You must do this, too, beloved. You know that the present life is short; if we do not earn our profits here, we will have no salvation hereafter. Gaining a single soul can often erase the burden of countless sins and be the price which buys us life on that day. Ponder on this question. Why were we sent prophets, apostles, just men, and often even angels? Why did the only-begotten Son of God come among us himself? Was it not to save men? Was it not to bring back those who had strayed?

If you do not actively evangelize, then you will go to hell, according to St John Chrysostom. It always amazes me how different the Fathers are from what the priests told us.

(6) You must do this with all the strength you have. You must devote all your zeal and concern to bringing back those who have strayed. At every religious service let me keep exhorting you to do this; whether you pay attention or not, I will not stop saying it. Whether you listen or not, it is God’s law that I fulfill this ministry. If you listen to me and do what I say, I will keep on doing this and feel great joy. If you disregard it and become indifferent to what I say, I will keep on saying it but I will feel great fear instead of joy.

How many Americans grew up Orthodox and left it as adults? Not only the ethnic cradle, but adult children of converts often leave. And what do we do to bring them back in? What do we offer them that they can’t get elsewhere?

(7) If you disobey, it will involve no risk for me hereafter. I have fulfilled my part. Even if there will be no danger for me because I have carried out my full fair share, I will feel sorrow for you when you are accused on that day. Even listening to me will be fraught with danger, when you fail to follow up my words with your deeds.

(8) Hear, at any rate, how Christ both reproved the teachers who buried the meaning of his message but how he also terrified those whom they taught. For after he said: “You should have deposited my money with the bankers,” he went on to add: “And on my return I should have demanded it back with interest.”

(9) What Christ showed by the parable was this. After hearing a sermon (for this is depositing the money), those who have received the instruction must make it produce interest. The interest from the teaching is nothing other than proving through deeds what you have been taught through words. Since I have deposited my money in your ears, you must now pay your teacher back the interest, that is, you must save your brothers. So, if you should just keep holding on to what I said and produce no interest by action on your own part, I am afraid that you will pay the same penalty as the servant who buried his talent in the ground. And for this he was bound hand and foot and cast into the darkness outside, because the words he heard brought no profit to others.

(10) So that we may not have this happen to us, let us imitate the servant who received five talents and the one who received two. Whatever you will be asked to spend to save your neighbor, be it words, money, bodily pain, or anything else whatsoever, we must not shrink back or hesitate. Then each of us, in every way, will multiply proportionately the talent given him by God. Then each of us will be able to hear those happy words: “Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your Master.” May we all gain this by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ through whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father together with the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.

So there is what the Fathers actually wrote about medical ethics. You can say that I’m misinterpreting it or applying it out of context. Maybe I am. But what absolutely no one does is apply the text at all. All the cassocks writing about how medicine intertwines with faith, not a single one of them pulls out this text and tries to make sense of it. They are embarrassed to even acknowledge that these sermons exist.